Lesson 2 – Fitness requirements in football

*Types of fitness & Aspects of Fitness

*Fitness requirements for football

Q1. How many types of fitness are there

Q2. Name the types of fitness?

3 Types of Fitness

Physical Skill-related Mental

Physical Fitness

CardioRespiratoryEndurance

Strength FlexibilitySpeedLocal

Muscular Endurance

Speed Endurance

Power

Watch the following two video clips and summarise the information given.

Cardio Respiratory Endurance

Speed Endurance

To further develop your understanding of these two aspects read and summarise the two handouts provided on Cardio Respiratory Endurance and Speed Endurance.

Physical Fitness – Cardio Respiratory Endurance

Cardio-respiratory endurance is the ability of the heart and lungs to provide the working muscles with oxygenated blood for a prolonged period of time.

Poor CRE will result in the player becoming breathless more quickly and unable to keep up with play or maintain a high skill level. Decision making will also be affected and longer rest periods will be needed to aid recovery.

Cardio Respiratory Endurance – Football Example

Cardio respiratory endurance (CRE) is required to last the full 90 minutes of the game. During the game you will do a lot of work both on and off the ball. You will make repeated runs to support attacks, get into space to receive the ball, make runs with the ball, chase back to defend etc.

The energy required to do this is supplied aerobically, which requires your heart, lungs and blood system to supply oxygen to the working muscles throughout the game. Therefore a high level of CRE delays the onset of fatigue. This means that your work rate stays high you can fulfil your role in the team and you will be able to maintain a high skill level (as fatigue can also affect your control, touch and concentration).

Physical Fitness – Speed Endurance

Speed allows the whole body to move quickly eg. in sprinting, or part of the body may move quickly eg. in throwing a cricket ball.

However SPEED ENDURANCE

Is the ability to do this repeatedly over an extended period of time without a decrease in speed.

Speed Endurance – Football Example

Speed is required when trying to beat an opponent to a 50/50 ball, to lose defender, to get in to space, to support an attack, to dribble round an opponent or to chase back and close down an attack. If you lack speed then you will be unable to maintain possession of the ball, win it back, or take on your opposite player effectively. This happens continually throughout the game as you repeatedly sprint over varied distances.

Therefore speed endurance is more important because if it is poor you will be unable to maintain sprinting or repeatedly sprint throughout the duration of the game.

The energy required to do this is supplied anaerobically as the aerobic system is too slow to meet the energy demands. These results in lactic acid build up and it is this, which leads to muscle fatigue. Therefore with improved speed endurance (anaerobic endurance) the body can delay the production of lactic acid and tolerate higher concentrations of it thus delaying fatigue.

Skill Related

Agility Balance CoordinationTimingReaction

TimeMovement anticipation

Skill Related Fitness – Agility

Agility is the ability to change the position of the body quickly, precisely and with control. This uses a combination of speed and flexibility. This helps team players dodge their opponents or turn to track back in defence or turn to create space and time to evaluate their options.

Watch the following video clip regarding agility in basketball.

Are there any comparisons that can be made?

Agility

Agility – Football Example

Agility is required to enable players to quickly change direction, for example when making runs into the penalty box, turning to close down an attack, quickly adjusting to closely mark a player who is trying to lose you or adjusting their upper body to reach a corner kick and head the ball towards the goal.

Attacking players need to use agility to lose defenders and create space, leading to better scoring opportunities and more time on the ball to evaluate their options increasing the chance of them executing skills correctly.

Skill Related Fitness – Balance

Balance is the ability to retain the centre of gravity above the base of support when stationary (static balance) or moving (dynamic balance). This helps gymnasts maintain their position and prevents games players from falling over at speed. Muscles work together to keep the body in a balanced position.

Dynamic Balance – Football Example

In football dynamic balance is very important. Players need this because they are moving and adjusting body position constantly when looking for scoring opportunities in the penalty box or trying to mark an opponent closely.

Good balance will help players to keep their shots on target, and to reach and play difficult volley strikes with accuracy - it will also help to maintain possession when a defender tries to push you of the ball.

Due: Tuesday 26th October

Instructions

1.Number your group 1-4

2.Collect the handout which corresponds to your number

3.Read and make notes of the information you have been provided with

4.On Tuesday 26th October you will be responsible for teaching your group your topic area

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H/W.2

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Mental Fitness – Level of ArousalLevel of arousal is the level of excitement, stress, nervousness and aggression as you get prepared to participate in an activity. Arousal levels can peak too high or dip too low.

Level of arousal can be described as how focussed, alert or laidback /relaxed or stressed a sports person is when performing.

If a performer is too laidback or not focussed their lack of arousal and limited motivation will lead to a poor performance.If a performer is over anxious / motivated and tense their stress levels will be too high and this will also lead to a poor performance.

Level of arousal is like a glass of water. If there is too little water in the glass it is not full enough to quench your thirst. If there is too much water the glass will over flow and makes a mess.

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Mental Fitness – Level of ArousalIf Level of arousal is to low performance will be poor because you want work to get into space to receive a pass or wont be motivated to track back and help protect defence. A low level of motivation will lead to a laid back can’t be bothered attitude.

On the other hand is performer is overly motivated or anxious they will run around everywhere and be out of position, by trying to do to much your physical fitness will drop. You are also likely to lunge into challenges giving away free kicks and possibly picking up a booking.

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Level of Arousal – Athletics ExampleLevel of mental arousal is key to success in the long jump. The

level of mental arousal is the level of excitement, anticipation, stress, aggression, apprehension and nervousness. It refers to the state of mental preparedness for participation in the activity. This is important for long jump as the athlete must be prepared to perform in front of a crowd and be able to deal with everyone focussing their attention solely on them.

If our mental arousal is too low then we may not perform at our highest level, we may appear to be tired, disinterested or distracted. Then again if it is too high, we may become stressed due to expectations, the importance of the occasion or the number of people watching. Having too high or too low a level or arousal may result in loss of distance.

I must find the correct level of mental arousal to perform at my best, so that I am excited enough, yet calm enough to execute the long jump perfectly.

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Mental Fitness – Managing EmotionsManaging your emotions is controlling your feelings in demanding situations. For example, if you are taking a penalty in football there are considerable pressures on you to score. You need to focus on what you are going to do, be positive about taking the penalty and not become easily distracted. Becoming over-anxious about taking the kick can result in a poorly taken penalty.

Managing emotions is also important when you perform in a team or group. For example, it is important to keep upir shape as part of a team. You need to listen to others and be ready as part of a team/group. This requires constant discipline to avoid conflict.

It is important to be aggressive so that you don't back out of tackles, but it is important to control your emotions. You don't want to get too wound up, put in dangerous tackles, retaliate too strongly, or argue with the referee's decisions and get booked for dissent. It is also important to remain positive and not be too hard on yourself if you make a mistake, as this can get you down and lead to a drop in performance

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Mental FitnessWatch the following video clip regarding managing emotions.

What can we say about the different players in video clip

Portuguese player sent offGerman play who was the victimThe Portuguese players teammates

Managing Emotions

Mental Fitness – Mental Rehearsal Mental rehearsal is key for mental preparation in a number of

activities.

This is when you rehearse in your head exactly what you plan to do and block everything else out.

Performers will visualise or run through in their mind what they need to do to perform well prior to their actual performance. They will often think about and visualises a successful performance before they carry it out. For example, in a basketball free throw I visualised the timing of the action I would be using and imagined the flight of the ball and the ball going into the basket

Mental rehearsal is most effective when you have control of the speed and pace of your movements. For example, you can rehearse all the component parts of your golf swing prior to playing a shot. It’s more difficult to do this for the return of a badminton serve. This is because your own movements are dictated by your opponent.

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Mental Rehearsal – Athletics Example

I may visualise the perfect jump and exactly how it will feel so that I know what to do when actually executing the jump. If I am able to block everything else out, such as the noise / movement of other athletes / spectators, then it allows me to think about nothing but my jump and makes me focus on my run up, striding, take-off, flight and landing.

If I have not rehearsed the jump in my head, what I plan to do, then I may rush into my run-up without striding correctly which means that I may place the wrong foot on the board or over/under place my take-off foot. Either way, my foot plant, take-off, flight and landing would be all wrong and the jump would be poorly executed and this would result in a loss of distance.

I must spent adequate time rehearsing a jump in my head in order to ensure that I have planned the jump and know exactly what I need to do.

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